Led by the dynamic Dominic Rose, supported by numerous others including the vicar, the children have quickly got into winning trophies, about which Dominic had alerted me.

In the failing light of 18/11/25, I found the club members by listening out for their voices.

Very cheerful voices they were too, as the kids busied themselves picking chard, aubergines, salad leaves and mange-tout peas that they had grown in raised beds, before being summoned for a joint photo, holding up silver cups.

Group of young growers inspect pea plants during hands-on gardening session (Image: Dana Tamari)

This was a repeat ceremony, to include all those who had not been there at the Guildhall or at Fellowship House.

Then it was time for them to go into the shelter of the church, and for Dominic's son Theo and his friend Yannick to guide me to the Woodland Garden, where a swing, given by the Tobin family, is now hanging from an oak branch.

It immediately claimed their attention, so Dominic's wife, Louisa picked up the thread, relating how this summer children and adults had cut back towering brambles, delineated paths with thin branches, planted up an old metal bath with perennials, and added a stumpery, a rockery, a fernery.

Children work together to pull fresh produce from raised beds (Image: Dana Tamari)

They have brought back a long-neglected area, restoring it to a place people like to be.

Alas, that some may like to undo the work, kicking things about, is just one of those disappointments that community garden volunteers have to live with.

Springett Lecture, Living Rivers: Water and Animacy on Hampstead Heath and Beyond, 30/10/2025

Robert Macfarlane gave this year's Springett Lecture in the faded Byzantine splendour of St Stephen's Church, Pond Street, NW3.

He based his engaging talk on his recent book, Is a River Alive?

(Hamish Hamilton, £25) linking it to Hampstead Heath with its many springs and the hidden River Fleet.

Young gardener lends a hand during harvest at a community growing project (Image: Dana Tamari)

Despite having taken notes I find it hard to encapsulate Macfarlane's message, perhaps because it is so mind-bending really to think of rivers being alive, having personalities, not being referred to as "it".

However, to recognise that the way we treat rivers amounts to killing them, that we are reckless with nature, is all too easy.

I cannot pretend yet to have read all this long book, but enough to recommend it for its immediacy, importance, and the love with which it is written.

THINGS TO DO

v Get as many spring bulbs planted as you can - nothing more cheering in the shortest days than the thought of bulbs growing.

v Good time to plant fruit bushes, shrubs, trees.

v Put horticultural fleece over outdoor plants vulnerable to frost when it's likely to be really cold, take it off again in milder moments to give the plants more air.

v Feed the birds.

v Rory McEwen: Nature's Song, interesting exhibition at The Garden Museum runs till 25/1/26.